Ivory in its natural state is a very porous substance. The ivory must first be polished in order to close up the pores so that when ink is applied to the tooth, it only fills the engraved lines, and does not cloud the surface of the ivory. For the initial rough sanding I use a homemade sander powered by a 1/3 horsepower dryer motor. This is the only power tool that I use in my work. It saves hours of time polishing, which is much better spent on the engraving. The motor turns the sanding disc at low rpm’s so as not to burn the ivory.
 

   fig. 2 - attached to ivory, pencil side  down




   fig. 3 - tracing transferred to ivory

 

   fig. 4 - transferred lines are strengthened

 

  fig. 5 - rubbing ink into lightly cut lines

 

   fig. 6 - wiping ink off surface
 

 
  fig. 7 - completed piece
 

I sand first with a 50-grit paper, followed by 120-grit paper, and then 220-grit paper. The ivory is next sanded by hand using the 220-grit paper. This is the most time consuming step as it can take several hours, depending upon the size of the piece, to get a nice satiny finish. Finally, the piece goes back to the power wheel where it is buffed with two jewelry polishing compounds, bobbing compound and then fabuluster. This gives the ivory the highly polished surface that I prefer to work on. I’m very careful at all stages of the polishing process not to let the ivory get overheated. Overheating can make the ivory brittle and difficult to engrave, and at the worst burn it, leaving an unsightly mark that cannot be removed. When the piece begins to get warm in one spot I move to an area on the opposite side.

Once satisfied with the polishing, the drawing stage begins. Simple drawings are done directly on the ivory surface with a #8008 Stabilo pencil (writes on anything!). Complicated drawings are first worked up on paper, scaled and copied to fit the ivory. The outlines of the copy are then traced in reverse onto a piece of tracing paper using a light table (fig.1). For this step I use a 2B Sanford Turquoise lead held in a Staedtler Mars#780 mechanical pencil. Any soft lead will do as long as it will transfer to the ivory surface. This tracing is then attached pencil side down to the ivory (fig.2), and the lines are rubbed over vigorously with an ordinary no.2 pencil to transfer them to the ivory surface (fig.3).

These faint lines are then strengthened with the Stabilo pencil. Usually when working on a nautical subject on a whale's tooth, the drawing has to be corrected in several areas to compensate for the compound curves of the tooth's surface. Finally the drawing is sprayed with a workable fixative so it won’t rub off as I engrave (fig.4).

At this point begins the actual engraving. A #16 X-acto blade is used for most of the line work, and a common household sewing needle held in a pin-vice for all of the stipple work. The outlines are lightly cut with the #16 blade. When all the outlines have been cut, I rub the fixative off using a folded tissue moistened with rubbing alcohol. The lines are then inked with India ink (fig.5). I prefer to use Koh-I-Noor Universal Drawing Ink #3080.  The ink is wiped off with a soft, folded paper towel. The towel is moistened with water and blotted to get rid of excess water. I then use the 'magic ingredient', a little spit on the towel. This really helps cut through the rapidly drying ink, and makes it easier to remove (fig.6).  Once the surface ink is gone, the inked engraved lines show up strongly against the polished ivory surface. Most times the lines have to be inked twice in order to fill them all the way up. At this point it’s easy to make corrections by sanding and polishing an area if a line isn’t quite right.

Once satisfied with the lightly engraved outlines, the long process of rendering the subject begins. As the work progresses, closest attention is paid to the values (the relative lights and darks) in the piece. Line work is done using a cross-hatching technique to build up the values. I like to ink constantly as I work to check the progress. It's not unusual to ink a piece hundreds of times before it’s complete. If you have questions about any of the above please send me an email through my 'contact' link.         
~ Robert Weiss

 

Site design and HTML by Robert Weiss.  © 2006 Robert Weiss - Marinearts.com.
No information contained in this site, whether text or graphical may be reproduced in any manner without prior permission of the copyright owner.